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Abstract

Avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are the preferred photodetectors for direct-detection, high data-rate long-haul optical telecommunications. APDs can detect low-level optical signals due to their internal amplification of the photon-generated electrical current, which is attributable to the avalanche of electron and hole impact ionizations. Despite recent advances in APDs aimed at reducing the average avalanche-buildup time, which causes intersymbol interference and compromises receiver sensitivity at high data rates, operable speeds of commercially available APDs have been limited to 10Gbps. We report the first demonstration of a dynamically biased APD that breaks the traditional sensitivity-versus-speed limit by employing a data-synchronous sinusoidal reverse-bias that drastically suppresses the average avalanche-buildup time. Compared with traditional DC biasing, the sensitivity of germanium APDs at 3Gbps is improved by 4.3 dB, which is equivalent to a 3,500-fold reduction in the bit-error rate. The method is APD-type agnostic and it promises to enable operation at rates of 25Gbps and beyond.

Fig. 3 Experimental eye-diagrams, at 3 Gbps, for dynamic (right) and static (left) biasing schemes. The optical power at the APD is −16.7dBm in both cases. The DC bias in both cases is −26.4 V, and the AC bias in the dynamic-bias case is 0.9Vpp.

Fig. 4 (Left) BER of the static-bias APD as a function of the reverse bias. Dashed line represents the BER corresponding to the dynamic bias. (Right) BER as a function of the optical power received by the APD for the dynamic-and static-bias cases.